


it's like I'm fighting myself (and I can't win)

by Take_Me_To_My_Fragile_Dreams



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Angry!Jim, Angst and Feels, Daddy Issues, Jim needs a hug, M/M, Spock is kind of a dick, mentions of Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Take_Me_To_My_Fragile_Dreams/pseuds/Take_Me_To_My_Fragile_Dreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Jim was angry and one time Bones was angry for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's like I'm fighting myself (and I can't win)

He is his father's son, or so he's told. He sees it in his mother's weepy eyes, shadowed and glazed over with the image of a man that had died to save them both. He sees it in Pike's gaze, in the way he says "I dare you to do better" that has him battling against his father's memory. He sees it in the other students, in the teachers, in the commanders; they all look at him, but don't see him. They see a shadow of a man that used to be, someone who is made of similar lines but different, as if parts had been whited out and erased.

He is his father's son and the small replica of the USS Kelvin that always sits in his pocket reminds him of this. For he cannot forget that he is at war, tossed into the fighting ring since birth to go against someone whose very name is praised; someone who made it so he could not do good or bad and not be reminded of. Every move he makes is a flail into the dark, a desperate effort to gain some ground, fists slipping through his father's shadow without making contact.

He is his father's son, James Tiberious Kirk, and he would give the title to the highest bidder if he could.

After all, Jim was tired of being held up to a dead man.  
  
\----1  
He is standing in front of a crowd of hundreds, accused of cheating against a test that was a cheat itself. There are eyes on him from all sides, burning holes into his uniform and if Jim hadn't spent a lifetime under those stares he would not be able to stop himself from curling away.

The Vulcan--Spock, his name is Spock--glares at him, as if he has committed some grave insult by outsmarting an apparently 'no win' scenario. He isn't lying when he says he doesn't believe in no win scenarios. He wouldn't be here if he did. His life has rested on a series of situations that were regarded as such and had that been true, he would not be alive.

Jim was no stranger to death, had cheated it enough times to almost call it a friend, and his very bones ache and vibrate beneath his skin with contained emotion as Spock hits him with a knife and twists.

"The purpose was to experience fear."

Fear, Jim nearly growls. Fear has stalked him nearly every moment of his life. Fear of death, of loss, of not being good enough, of being swallowed by his father's shadow. Fear had ruled him for months when he'd been no more than a kid, bruised and bloodied and starving and trying to survive. Fear he had felt, especially during the first time taking the vulcan's cheat of a test, and he'd spent long minutes hunched over a toilet bowl and gagging on nothing afterwards as the simulations rang through his mind over and over again; _everyone dead_.

"You of all people--"

He can't help but hunch then, biting remarks cutting his lips on the way out as he desperately tries to regain control. He's being watched right here, watched and judged and sized up and he wants to rip at that pointy-eared bastard's hair for doing this to him.  
His hands clench and Jim can feel the outline of the Kelvin against his thigh, and he hopes that the tremors beginning to wrack his body aren't noticeable, that the eyes-- _fuck, all those eyes_ \--can't see straight down to the maelstrom  taking place inside of him.

He takes great gasping breaths when all of the other cadets file out of the hall for orders, heart racing.  
  
\----2  
"That same anomaly 'a lightning storm in space' that occurred today also occurred on the day of my birth." Jim practically snarls, and if his eyes could spit fire Spock would be a burned crater in the ground.

 _Stop it_ , he screams, glaring at the Vulcan. _Stop staring at me like that, stop comparing me to my father_ \--

Jim forces himself to finish the torrent of thoughts rushing through his brain, aware that Bones is at his back and that this brings him comfort somehow. "We're headed straight for a trap." He finishes, letting out a gust of breath he hasn't know he'd been holding. It both infuriates and terrifies him that for a moment it looks almost as if Pike won't believe him, that the man who dared him to do better might condemn him as a lunatic and get them all killed.

And then Spock steps up and even though his words are in Jim's favor his eyes spit fire that would burn him to the ground.  
  
\----3  
Jim stares down at the waxed surface of the bar, fingers toying with his glass as Bones leans against his side. The doctor is flushed and drunken, his normally careful intake of alcohol gone under the need to escape, something Jim understands all too perfectly.

"Bones," he murmurs, soft and questioning. "What are you running from?"

"There's everythin' to run from, Jim." Leonard answers tiredly, finishing off his seventh glass. "Finding somethin' to run to... Now that's the real task."

Jim finds himself stealing away any more liquor the doctor tries to consume, ushering him out of the bar not long after those haunting words.

Not for the first time he curses Bones' ex-wife and anyone else who'd hurt his friend for what they'd done.  
  
\----4  
The mockery of suffering and tragedy is not something that's new to Jim. He's seen all to often how cruel people can be and he's far from being an angel himself, but all of the songs and stories and comments get to him every now and then like never before. Tarsus IV seems to be a target for such things, and Jim has the all to often misfortune of overhearing the ignorance of some people.

If it had just been him perhaps it would have been different. But there were people on that planet, innocent, _good_ people, who died because of a madman. Children and elders alike had been executed right before their families, hunted down like dogs and treated no worse than dirt. And those that had made it out alive were even worse off than the dead, haunted by the death they'd witnessed. Tarsus had been a nightmare, a little slice of hell, and every time he heard someone mocking the event, heard someone dismiss it as if it hadn't happened he just--he couldn't--

Jim broke every single piece of glass in his apartment. And if he got scolded by Bones for getting glass caught in his feet and hands it was halfhearted at best.  
  
\----5  
He stares into the face of Admiral Marcus, and knows that he is sizing him up as everyone does. The only difference is: Jim doesn't care. He's fucking _furious_ , wants to use his fists to knock him into unconsciousness instead of his gun because he threatened his _family_ , was going to _kill_ them and that is unacceptable.

And if he's a little bitter about the fact that his pleas had fallen on deaf ears and his worst nightmares had come true, sue him. The fucking bastard deserved the rough handling and more. He was almost viciously glad when Khan killed him, the snapping of bones caving in a sickening lullaby that soothed his anger.  
  
\----1  
 _"You're your father's son," his mother whispers, eyes wistful; somehow she makes it sound like both praise and condemnation._

_"You're your father's son," Pike says, eyes admiring and pitying all at once._

_"I'm my father's son," Jim snarls bitterly, kicking out at the male towering over him. That's all he'll ever be really, isn't it? No matter what he does... Not matter what he accomplishes... He will never live up to expectations, will never be the one to stand up without a shadow casting over him._

"What the fuck are you talkin' about?" Bones interrupts, mouth twisted into a scowl.

Jim blinked, staring at him in surprise as he jolted out of his memories. He hadn't been aware that he'd been speaking aloud.

"I'm my father's son." He repeats, slow and confused, as if he shouldn't have to say it because really, everyone knows right? "And that's all I'll probably ever be."

He expects Bones to scoff, or maybe even agree, what he doesn't expect is a snarled "bullshit" and the doctor's face in his. Bones' eyes are fierce and almost protective, fingers digging into Jim's arms.

"You're Jim Kirk." Bones growls, as if he knows just what Jim needs to hear, has always needed to hear. "Pain in my ass and captain to the USS Enterprise. You've saved far more than 800 lives and you're far from death, so I don't wanna hear none of that bullshit come out of your mouth again. Got it?"

Jim blinked dazedly, shocked and unable to compute what had just happened. Finally he shook his head, managing a weak smile. "Aw Bones, who knew you cared?"

"Idiot," the doctor scorned under his breath, mouth fierce against Jim's. He's never really talked too much about his past--doesn't like to--but Jim can see in the way Bones' eyes gleam like he'd stand against space itself and all it's darkness to defend Jim, that Bones gets it. Gets what Jim's seldom said and will help him fight against his father's shadow until he's standing in the victory circle with nothing but the sun shining down.

Jim smiles and tugs Bones closer. "Thank you," he whispers into the doctor's jaw.

**Author's Note:**

> http://my101fragiledreams.tumblr.com/


End file.
